


Catching My Breath

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, FtM Steve, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Transgender, Transitioning, Transphobia, trans!Steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it has nothing to do with asthma.</p><p>A series of vignettes exploring the life of a self-made man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve set the scissors down on the desk, shook out her -- _his_ ; sometimes even his own mind betrayed him -- hair and looked at himself in the mirror.  
It was messy, choppy and Steve figured he would do better if he hadn't been so high-strung when he'd taken a blade to his own hair.

He sucked in his cheeks and tried to stick out his jaw.

The effect was somewhat ruined by the blouse he was wearing, and he felt a sudden flare of rage, tearing it off and looking in the mirror again, panting.  
He'd never really developed any breasts to speak of, something he had been grateful for beyond anything he would be able to articulate.

Really, Steve was fairly bony and thin all over. Not many curves.  
Mainly just ribs and gangly arms and legs.

He'd never been very girlish at all.  
But that hadn't stopped Bucky from calling him the prettiest girl he ever had seen.

Steve closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, smiling fondly at the memory and wishing he could enjoy it without the pressure of uncertainty weighing at his shoulders.

Bucky had kissed him, hard and more certain than Steve had been about any of it. Big hands sliding up under his blouse with fingers splaying over his ribcage, thumbing over his nipples.  
The way Bucky's voice got all hoarse when Steve could feel his erection against his belly, mouths sliding together.

"I've always thought so. I've always-- you're the prettiest girl in the whole world. Only girl for me."

And Steve couldn't _blame_ him. Bucky didn't know. But if Bucky had loved him that much before, wouldn't he still love him? Steve hoped so. God, he hoped so.  
If not...? Well, Steve had better get moving on to other places before he fell much further for his best friend.

(It was too late, it had been too late when they were nine)

Steve pulled on one of Bucky's too-small shirts that he had taken and stuffed under his mattress when Bucky had been about to give them away. He had trousers, too. They weren't men's, but it was close enough.

He looked at himself in the mirror, tried to tame his hair, and tried very hard not to imagine what Bucky would think.

When Bucky came in, he stopped midway through hollering out a greeting when he looked up to see Steve standing in the door with his shoulders squared and cheeks very pale.

"Jesus, what'd you do to your hair?"

Steve swallowed.  
"Buck, there's something I've gotta tell you. And you have to hear me out, hear the whole thing before you say anything. Okay?"

Bucky set down the boot he had been in the process of pulling off and straightened up very slowly.  
"Okay." He sounded wary, concerned.

Steve tried to keep his hands from shaking as he lead Bucky over to the sofa, wiping his palms on his knees and letting out a shaky breath.  
"You know how I've told you when I'm sick that I think I got put in the wrong body when they were sending people down from heaven?"  
It had been a common, tired joke he'd made when in the middle of an asthma attack or running a high fever.

Bucky didn't say anything, and Steve was worried until he remembered how he had asked him not to speak until the end. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see how intently Bucky was watching him.

Steve swallowed again.

"I wasn't talking about bein' sick." A sharp, ugly laugh. "Well, not just about bein' sick."

He'd always figured that if he had been born a boy, that would be better, too. It was just how his mind worked; pretending that would have fixed everything if only that one thing had been right.

He'd planned a million ways to say it, in the end, Steve just blurted.  
"I'm a boy."

Bucky was looking at him like he was seriously considering feeling his forehead for a temperature.

"I mean, not-- I-- inside. Inside. Here." Steve tapped his chest. "Inside, I'm a boy. This... This body, it's wrong. I feel like I'm drowning in it, and it isn't the asthma."

God, he hoped he didn't cry.

"I know you said I'm the prettiest girl in the world, and I appreciate it, I do. But, Buck, I'm not-- I'm not a girl."

Bucky watched him for a long time before he spoke, and Steve wasn't sure if he was holding his breath or if he just couldn't breathe.

Bucky wasn't often quiet, but he was now.  
"Go get the scissors and lemme fix that up for you, pal. Did you do that in the dark or something?"

There was the ghost of a familiar smile playing around Bucky's lips, and Steve laughed. Short, choked.  
But real.

It felt good to be real.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternal thanks to Lucy, Nix, and Ray for beta.

"What's got you in such a mood, Rogers?" Bucky asked incredulously after Steve had snapped at him for the sixth time that evening.

Steve pretended he didn't notice how Bucky would call him by his last name because he still couldn't quite bring himself to call him 'Steve'. But as it was, it was just another straw across the camel's back.

Steve kicked at the ground.  
"'M on the rag." He muttered.

When they were kids, Steve was fairly certain that Bucky had thought Steve had stuffed his hair up under a cap and worn trousers like the rest of the boys just because he didn't want to be barred from time with his friends due to things like "No girls allowed".  
Hell, that's what Steve had thought.

Round about the time all the other girls had been developing figures and either shyly showing them off or trying to cover it up, Steve had been praying he never would.

He thought it was 'cause he wanted to be able to run around with Buck and the other boys for a long time.  
However none of them ever would've known when he started his monthlies unless he had an accident, and he cried the first time he woke to discover himself bleeding out into his knickers.

His ma, bless her heart, had tried to reassure him it was normal. It was a step every girl took on the way to becoming a woman.  
"I don't _want_ to be a woman," Steve had sobbed into her frock, unsure if the twisting ache low in his stomach was from the bleeding or the crying.

She'd thought he meant he didn't want to give up his childhood so fast.  
He didn't. For the first time in his life, Steve began to put a name to the tightness in his chest when he looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the person looking back at him.

Actually, that wasn't right. There wasn't a name for it, so far as he knew. There was just the dissatisfaction, the wrongness, the envy when he watched Bucky playing football with the guys once they'd finally stopped allowing Steve to tag along.  
The feeling that _something_ should be different.

Every month, that feeling swelled more than any other time until Steve was sick with it, drenched in melancholy and choked with frustration.

Bucky opened his mouth in a silent 'Ah'.  
He'd long since been used to how moody Steve would get, and Steve was fairly certain Bucky assumed it was just feminine hysterics or something of the like.  
There was a pause.  
"Does this have anything to do with--?"

He hadn't been able to say it. Not really.  
But he also hadn't left, hadn't stopped standing up for Steve and hadn't tried to tell Steve he was touched in the head because of what he'd told him that night. He was trying to understand, Steve could see that much in the way Bucky would look at him like an algebra problem he wasn't sure if he could solve or not. Could hear it in the halting way Bucky tried to speak to him the way he'd asked.

But they hadn't touched that same way since that night, and Steve would be lying if he said that didn't sting.

"Yeah." He let out the word in a long breath, shoulders hunched over and hands deep in his pockets. It was his automatic posture, these days. Least 'ladylike' thing he could think of.

Bucky was silent for some time before speaking up firmly, clapping Steve on the back hard enough to make him stumble.  
"Let's go out and get us some dames."  
Hesitant, less sure of himself: "Do you, uh, do you... _like_ dames?"

Steve shrugged.  
"Sure."  
Who he really liked was Bucky, but he wasn't gonna say that. Not with how unsteady things had been between them lately.

"Great."  
Bucky seemed relieved, and Steve wasn't sure if it was because he hadn't put his foot in it, or because Steve was acting like a 'normal' man in his affections. Truthfully, he didn't want to know.

Bucky stopped and squinted at him.  
"No way we're going out with you dressed like that, though. Come on."

They were almost to their shoebox apartment anyways, and Steve dutifully trailed up the stairs after Bucky, trying to pretend he wasn't winded by it.

"You got any nice ties, Stevie?"

There was a false confidence that rang through Bucky's voice, like he wanted Steve to think he knew what he was doing when in actuality he had no damn clue.

"No."

"Right, right. Stupid question. Here, take this one." Steve fumbled to catch the scrap of fabric that Bucky tossed over his shoulder at him without so much as a glance in his direction while he rummaged through his dresser.  
Steve turned the tie over in his hands. It was worn, but nice. No real tears or stains to speak of. He swallowed down the lump in his throat. Silly, to cry about being given a tie.  
"Thanks."  
"Don't mention it."

Bucky turned around, now with a pair of suspenders and a comb in his hands, looking Steve up and down. He swallowed.  
"Guess the rest of you'll do, but we gotta do something about how you walk, pal."  
"What's wrong with how I walk?" Steve asked defensively, trying to puff up his chest.

Bucky seemed to be trying very hard to bite back laughter. Steve supposed he didn't look all that intimidating. But his slight frame and delicate features were hardly his fault, were they?  
He wondered what Bucky saw. If Bucky was seeing a silly girl trying to be a man. If this was a joke to Bucky.

"You skulk, buddy."  
"I do not!"  
"You gotta walk tall, Steve." Bucky emphasized his name just a little. "If..." he looked down at his hands, fiddling with the suspenders. "If you can't have confidence in who you are, how d'you expect anyone else to take you seriously?"

When Bucky looked up, his eyes were earnest.

Steve had to wonder how much Bucky wanted him to look and act more like the man he said he was just so it was easier for him to reconcile, so it was a little less confusing.

Steve stuck out his jaw and raised his head a bit. He would do it. Not to make Bucky feel more comfortable, because in the end that would always be on Buck, not him.  
But because Bucky was trying to help. And maybe this was the only way he knew how.  
That had to count for something, right?

"Fine. Guess you'll be teaching me how to walk proper, Barnes."  
"I will," Bucky said, and it sounded like a promise. "Dames won't know what hit 'em, buddy, they'll never see you comin'."

And wasn't that the truth?


End file.
